Woof, There It Is

by Deborah Gregory

  “I’m not feeling him,” I mumble to Chuchie, rolling my eyes to the ceiling.

  “You wuz off the hook, Cheetah Girls!” Stak says on the way to his dressing room, which is at the other end of the hallway. Thank gooseness the Tinkerbell Lounge is big—just like everywhere in La La Land.

  “You were, too,” I hear myself saying, even as I’m gritting my teeth.

  Chuchie giggles. She thinks it’s so funny, ’cuz bozos always seem to like me.

  Mom comes to the doorway. “It’s show time, girlitas—again.”

  We know that means we’re supposed to go back out into the performing area, and be really really nice to all the peeps we meet. This is real important, see—it’s not enough to be talented, as my mom’s been telling us—you have to go out there and “shmooze” with the “suits” if you want to nail down a record deal. And do I ever want to nail one down, right to the floor!

  Deejay Captain Hook comes up to the mike. He tells us he’ll be spinning on the “wheels of steel,” and to sit back and dig the sounds.

  “He’s funny,” I laugh to Do’ Re Mi. “The peeps out here are kinda cooler, more laid-back than peeps in Manny-hanny. I definitely like it!”

  A man in a white linen suit comes up to Mom, and extends his hand. “Hi, Mrs. Garibaldi. I’m Tom Isaaks from the A and R department at Def Duck.”

  Mom is really nice to him, which is surprising, because she usually gaspitates at people who wear white after Labor Day, but I guess she knows what time it is. It’s definitely time to sashay and parlay!

  Do’ Re Mi and I back away, so Mom is free to flow. I keep an eye on her, as I accept congratulations from members of the other acts, and from people who were in the house. Everyone says they loved us, and they’re wearing big, goofy smiles, so I know they either mean what they’re sayin’, or they’re just playing.

  But part of my attention is always on Mom and Mr. Isaaks, ’cuz he’s the one we’re after right now. There are other A and R guys here, no doubt, but this one came up to mom first thing.

  As I’m standin’ there, I catch Stak and Chedda Jackson high-fiving it across the floor from me, nodding their bozo heads up and down like they’re all that and a bag of chips. I’m thinking I want to go over there and find out what all the hip-hoppin’s about, but they beat me to the punch.

  “Yo, Cheetah Girls,” Stak greets me and Dorinda. “What the deal-io, yo?”

  “Chillin’, chillin’,” I say, trying to act cool like a jewel. But what Stak says now sends a real chill up and down my spine.

  “Looks like Stak Chedda got us a record deal!” Stak nods, flashing his pointy-toothed grin like he’s sitting on a million duckets.

  “For true?” Dorinda asks, her jaw dropping. “Man, that was fast!”

  “We don’t waste no time, waitin’ for no dime!” Chedda gloats. “Y’all got any interest goin’?” Stak asks me.

  “My mo … our manager’s talkin’ with the A and R dude right now,” I say. And from the look of things, it’s getting serious between Mr. Isaaks and my mom. Their smiles have vanished, and now it looks like he’s explaining the ins and outs of things to her.

  “Well, good luck, yo,” Stak says, giving us a little hand salute. “Y’all really rocked the house. You deserve a deal, just like us.” He and Chedda move off toward the cocktail bar. I guess they’re old enough for cocktails, come to think of it.

  Now Mom comes up to us. “Where are the other girls?” she asks. We look around for them. Chuchie is flirting with some hunky executive in a shiny suit and mirror shades. The twins are by the food spread, talking to the Beehives, their mouths full of food.

  Do’ Re Mi and I go round them up, and we huddle with my mom. “Well, Cheetah Girls, Mr. Isaaks is interested in signing the Cheetah Girls to a contract….”

  We whoop and holler for a minute, hugging one another and crying tears of joy.

  My mom tries to stop the party. “Whoa, now, wait a minute, I haven’t finished telling you the whole story!” We calm down, and she continues. “He says, though, that it’s not all up to him. He’s got to play our tape for some higher-up executives, and try to convince them he’s right about signing the Cheetah Girls.”

  “So, what does that mean?” Chuchie asks, the smile fading from her face.

  “It means, we probably won’t know anything for a while, and we’re just gonna have to be patient and wait.”

  “How long is a while?” Dorinda asks.

  “He says it could be a few weeks before he knows anything, but that we can call and check in if we start getting anxious, and he’ll give us an update of his progress.”

  “A few weeks!” Aqua gasps. “Dag on, that’s, like, forever!”

  “Yeah!” Angie echoes. “How come it’s got to take so long?”

  “Well, apparently, not everyone was here who had to hear you girls sing,” Mom explains.

  “But Stak Chedda got an offer just now!” Dorinda breaks in, saying just what I was about to say.

  “Well,” Moms shrugs, “I don’t know … maybe the executives from the Alternative Rap division were all here or something.”

  “Yeah,” Chuchie says, “and maybe they’re just better than us.”

  “Put a lid on it, Miss Cuchifrita!” I say. “If we have to wait, we’ll just wait.”

  My crew all agrees, and we get together and do a Cheetah Girls cheer. But inside, I feel like I’m falling apart. A few weeks! Can the Cheetah Girls even hang together that long? Without any gigs, with no duckets coming in, Dorinda might find some other paying gig performing and Auntie Juanita may yank Chuchie out of the group. And what if “a few weeks” becomes a few months? What if we don’t get the deal, after all that waiting? It’ll be the end for us, I just know it!

  Chapter

  8

  If I thought the drama we had trying to get to L.A. for the Def Duck Records showcase was like being in the Twilight Zone, then I was wrong. Flying back from Cali on the overnight “red-eye,” to go to school in the Big Apple the next day with a cold, a splitting headache, and a bad attitude, is really what it feels like to be in the Twilight Zone.

  Right this minute, Chuchie and I are walking to our lockers after third period. I can’t even walk fast, because it makes my head hurt more. What a roller-coaster ride our life is! “I can’t believe just yesterday, we were living large in Cali, and today we’re goospitating about a stupid math exam,” I moan to Chuchie, who is lost in her own Telemundo channel, as usual.

  I hate math, and would rather have someone stick my eyelashes together with Wacky Glue than have to figure out another algebra equation! “Equate this—squared times x to the fourth power equals nonsense!” I moan to Chuchie. She’s even worse in math, except, of course, when it comes to adding up how much money she can spend shopping!

  “You don’t think this looks stupid, do you, Chuchie?” I ask, fingering the cheetah dog collar I’m wearing around my neck. It’s a good thing the collar fit me, because it sure didn’t fit Toto. When I got home and tried to put it around my boo-boo’s neck, it was too big for him by an L.A. mile. What was I thinking when I bought it?

  “No, Mamacita. It looks dope. I wish I had one,” she whines wistfully. “Pero, I can’t believe you don’t know what size Toto is by now.”

  “I was delirious, okay, Chuchie?” I groan.

  Chuchie changes the subject. “Do you think you passed the math exam?”

  “I don’t know, did you?” I snap back, then shove some books into my locker. “Thank gooseness it’s lunchtime, ’cuz I’m fading pronto. I feel like I’m about to fall on my face.”

  “Well, you are, ’cuz here comes the Red Snapper and Mackerel,” Chuchie giggles sarcastico.

  Derek Ulysses Hambone, aka “DUH,” is the biggest pain, but I try to be nice to him, because his mother is a very good customer at Mom’s boutique. “I don’t understand why all the bozos like me,” I mumble under my breath.

  Derek is in our face now. “Yo, Cheetah Girl. We misse
d you yesterday. I heard you was getting busy in Cali. That true? Kahlua Alexander hooked you up with a showcase?”

  Derek is sucking on a lollipop that makes him look like a—well, like a Red Snapper. Mackerel Johnson, “his boy,” is bopping around as usual, and grinning at Chuchie like he’s waiting for a visit from the tooth fairy.

  “Yeah, it’s true,” I mumble, trying to smile at Derek. He is wearing a red sweat suit, with the Johnny BeDown logo up the side of the pants and across the top in jumbo-size black letters. How tick-tacky.

  “That’s dope, you got it like that. Did you get a record deal yet?” Mackerel cuts in, amping up his hyper moves.

  “We don’t know anything yet,” I reply, irritated ’cuz I don’t wanna think about it, and I don’t want them to know we’ve got it like that—waiting nervously like hungry cubs. “We just did it for the experience, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, I hear you, Cheetah Girls. I know y’all gonna blow up one day, and I’ll be like Batman—bam! Right there by your side when it goes down,” Derek heckles, grinning at me with that awful gold tooth in front. “You should let me be your manager, yo.”

  “Thank gooseness, we already have a manager,” I smirk back at him.

  Suddenly, the Red Snapper is staring at my neck like he’s a vampire, which gives me the chillies. “Yo, check that choker around your neck. That is dope.”

  Chuchie starts giggling, and I’m really gonna whack her if she tells Derek that the choker around my neck is really a dog collar!

  “Thanks. I bought it in Cali,” I say, telling only half a fib-eroni.

  “Too bad, ’cuz I’d like one of those. I’m gonna be modeling in this fashion show at my mom’s church, and it would look dope with the designs I’ll be wearing—cheetah stuff like you like,” Derek explains, flossing.

  “Well, it’s not too bad, because we make them, too,” I say, smirking at my quick comeback.

  “Word? Well then make me one—you know I’m good for the duckets,” the Red Snapper says, pulling out a wad of money from his deep-sea pockets.

  “Awright, but you got to pay to play—tomorrow,” I retort.

  “How much? Oh—make the choker a little wider, too,” Derek says, waving the hand in which he’s flossing his duckets.

  “For you, Derek, we’ll let you slide for, um, twenty,” I say, thinking off the top of my head.

  “Okay, bet. Later, Cheetah Girl.”

  Chuchie and I hightail it outside to wait for Do’ Re Mi, then walk toward Mo’ Betta Burger on Eighth Avenue.

  “You won’t believe what Bubbles just did!” Chuchie says, grabbing Do’ Re Mi’s arm and filling her in on my entrepreneurial moves.

  Mom would be so proud of me, I think. Instead of waiting around for a record deal to appear, I’m goin’ out there and makin’ things happen in the duckets department. One way or another, I’m gonna show her and my dad that I can make my own payday. I’m not some spoiled brat, like Derek Hambone!

  “If Derek would just give up on the gold rush, maybe I could at least look at him without puking,” I mumble to Do’ Re Mi.

  “Word. I hear that.”

  Suddenly, I get a great idea. “Maybe I should send him an anonymous letter, telling him he wouldn’t look like such a wack attack if he took out that gold tooth. You think that’s a dope idea?” I suggest to my crew.

  “Nope, ’cuz he’ll know it’s from you,” Do’ Re Mi says. She’s smart, so I listen to her.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Too bad.”

  “You really gonna make him a cheetah choker?” Do’ Re Mi asks, squinching up her nose as we walk inside Mo’ Betta, order some burgers, and chill at a table.

  “Yup,” I counter. I’m getting my chomp-a-roni on with a mushroom burger, when I suddenly get another fabbie-poo idea! “I’m even gonna put my nickname for Derek on his choker, in silver letters—scemo!”

  Chuchie almost chokes on her burger, giggling.

  LaRonda, one of the girls in my math class, walks by our table. “What y’all up to?” she asks, checking out our mischief moves.

  “Nothing,” I reply, trying not to choke.

  “The math test was hard, yo, wasn’t it?” LaRonda groans, still standing by our table.

  “Yeah, it sure was,” I respond.

  LaRonda looks at me, then gives me the same vampire look that Derek did. “That choker is dope. Where’d you get that, yo?” she asks, excited.

  “Actually, I, um, I mean, we make them,” I say, telling one whole fib-eroni this time. If I’m gonna sell one to the Red Snapper, I might as well sell one to LaRonda while I’m at it, you know what I’m saying? “We’ve got a few different styles. I, um, we could make you one like this.”

  “That sounds cool. How much you selling ’em for?” LaRonda asks, panting like a puppy for our product.

  “Ten dollars,” I say, charging LaRonda a cheaper price than the Red Snapper, since she’s cool.

  “Word. Can you make me one?”

  “Yup. I’ll bring it to school tomorrow,” I tell her proudly. “But you know you got to pay to play, yo?”

  “Ayiight. Don’t worry, Galleria, I’ll have the money. Just bring me the choker,” LaRonda says, then walks away.

  “LaRonda—you want me to make you one with your name on it?”

  “Word—you can do that?” she turns and asks, her eyes brightening even wider.

  “Yup—that’s a done deal-io, yo,” I say, flossing, and go back to eating my burger. LaRonda smiles, and goes to the counter to order.

  All of a sudden, I notice my headache is gone, and my mind is ka-chinging like a cash register as I talk real fast to my crew. “The three of us can go after school today to the garment district, and buy the leather strips, some metal letters, snap closures, Wacky Glue, and we’re in the house—in business, yo!”

  Chuchie and Do’ Re Mi look at me like “Bubbles is trouble.” I see I’m gonna have to convince my crew to be down with the new endeavor that will make us clever.

  I take a deep breath, like Drinka taught us to do, then do my wheela-deala. “Look. We can sit around here, waiting for Def Duck or some other record company to give us a record deal. And that is definitely cool, yo, but we’re Cheetah Girls, and we’ve got the skills to pay the bills, so why not parlay and sashay?”

  Chuchie starts giggling and gets excited. I can see she’s finally hopping on the choo-choo train. After all, she needs money a lot worse than I do so she can pay her mother back all the money she charged on her credit card! “Maybe we should make some chokers so we can sell them at Kats and Kittys!” she suggests hopefully.

  “Word, that would be dope,” Do’ Re Mi chimes in. I know Do’ can use some duckets worse than any of us—her “family” has got no money at all, once they get done feeding all those foster kids and paying the rent. “We could even try to sell them to stores—I mean, um, little stores, anyway,” Do’ Re Mi adds, wincing, then shrugs her teeny-weeny shoulders.

  “You think Madrina would sell some for us in the store?” Chuchie asks me.

  “You’re the one who works there part-time, so you’d better ask her,” I chuckle. “I’m not asking Mom for any more favors. She does enough for us.”

  “It’s not a favor, flava—it’s about bizness,” Do’ Re Mi says, smirking and sipping on her Coke.

  “Well, I think we should make up a few chokers first, then try to sell them to a boutique or something, and only then ask Mom. She’ll have to say yes, if someone else buys them from us first, right?” I say, whipping out my Kitty Kat notebook to make some notes. “Okay, we’ll make, um, eight chokers that say—what?”

  “Why ‘what’?” Do’ Re Mi asks.

  “Not what, silly—but what should it say?”

  “Oh. How about ‘Growl Power’?” Do’ Re Mi says, looking at us for approval.

  “Do’ Re Mi, you are so money—that’s dope!” I say, getting really excited. “Okay, we make five chokers for ourselves, so we’ll wear them all the time.
Kind of like a walking advertisement for our product. Then we’ll make three more, which we’ll try to sell. Then one more for Snapper—that says, ‘Scemo’. One for LaRonda. Should we make LaRonda’s name with just capital letters, or small ones, too?”

  “LaRonda. I like it with capital and small letters. Maybe we should get gold and silver letters, though,” Do’ Re Mi suggests.

  “Yeah, that’s cool. Okay, after school, let’s get busy, ’cuz it’s time to put some duckets in the bucket!”

  Chapter

  9

  I’m so glad the twins have finally talked their father into letting them get a cell phone. Of course, he wouldn’t spring for a Miss Wiggy StarWac, like Chuchie and I have, but at least it works, even if it’s a “no name” model.

  “Angie, meet us at Pig in the Poke on Fortieth Street,” I tell the twins, so they can get in on the choker action, too. Because Chuchie, Do’ Re Mi, and I are students at Fashion Industries High, we have a special discount card that we can use at any store if we’re buying stuff for school—like sewing, design, or pattern-making supplies. So our best bet is to go buy supplies for the chokers in the heart of the garment district—which is pretty much below Forty-second Street, near Times Square.

  LaGuardia Peforming Arts High School is just a hop and skip down from there on the #1 train, so it only takes Aqua and Angie twenty minutes to get hooked up with us.

  “That skirt is cute,” Chuchie says to Aqua. The twins actually do look cute today. I mean, it’s not how we three dress, but they’re starting to get their own style groove, which is cool. They have on matching black-and-white-checked mini-skirts, with black sweaters and flats. Dressing alike is not just a cheetah thing—it’s a twin thing, too.

  “Did you tell High Priestess Abala about that waitress, Raven, we met?” I ask, kinda half-jokingly.

  High Priestess Abala and the twins’ dad are getting a little too serious too fast for Aqua and Angie’s taste. Of course, it doesn’t help that Abala probably goes to work on a broomstick, too! I think she’s definitely part of some kooky coven, you know what I’m saying?